The least liked party, across all eight countries, is Alternative for Germany (AfD), allegedly the main challenger of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.
Photograph: Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images

For years now we have been told that in western democracies, politics is defined by a struggle between an emboldened populism and an embattled status quo. According to this logic, those in the first group – populists – are the real voice of the people, and the second group – traditional establishment political parties – represents out-of-touch elites. A recent study shows that these claims are wrong on virtually all counts.

The Pew Research Center, a non-partisan US research organization, surveyed citizens in eight western European countries (Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK) to gauge those citizens’ opinions about key issues and parties in their respective countries. (Full disclosure: I consulted on this project.) Pew’s fascinating report shows how simplistic and wrong the dominant media narrative is. I’ll discuss four of the most important findings.

1. Traditional, establishment parties are more popular than made out to be

If one is to believe the media, traditional parties are among the most loathed organizations in the world, catering to just a small “cosmopolitan” elite, while populists are the real champions of the people. But, in line with the results of almost all recent elections, the Pew study finds that in most countries “traditional parties are seen in a more favorable light than populist parties”. In fact, social democratic parties are the most favored party in half of the surveyed countries and are seen favorably by a majority of the population in five of the eight countries.

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2. Populist parties are (much) less popular than traditional parties

Populist parties are not only usually less popular than traditional parties, they are seen unfavorably by the majority of their respective populations. The least liked party, across all eight countries, is Alternative for Germany (AfD), allegedly the main challenger of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. AfD is seen as unfavorable by 83% of Germans and favorable by just 11%. The second and third least favorable parties in western Europe are both rightwing populist parties – the French National Front, with just 16%, and the Sweden Democrats (SD), with 17%.

Leftwing populist parties are on average more popular than rightwing populist parties, but not by much. More striking is that only two of the eight rightwing populist parties are seen as favorable by a majority of people with right-populist views (Lega and SD), while a majority of left-populists favor leftwing populist parties. To be clear, the issue is not simply that they are new, or at least non-traditional; non-populist newcomers like Ciudadanos and En Marche are seen in a considerably more favorable light.

3. The struggle between traditional and populist parties includes important regional differences

Given these dramatic numbers, it comes as no surprise that in most countries the gap in favorability between populist and non-populist parties is substantial. However, there are significant regional differences, including a clear divide between northern and southern Europe.

The favorability gap is biggest in Germany, where the least favored non-populist party (CDU) is still 44 percentage points more popular than the populist AfD. In Sweden there is a difference of 35 percentage points between the establishment moderates and the populist Sweden Democrats. But the differences are much less pronounced in southern Europe, where only one party is seen as favorable by a majority of the population, and only barely so – Ciudadanos, with 51%.

Similarly, La France Insoumise is the second most favored party in France, after Macron’s non-populist En Marche, but well ahead of the two traditional French parties, the right-leaning Republicans and the center-left Socialist party. The only country to somewhat resemble the dominant media narrative is, unsurprisingly, Italy, where the populist party M5S is seen most favorably (albeit only by 39% of the people) and the traditional Democratic party is only one percentage point more favorable than the least liked party in the country, the populist Lega.

4. Europeans still see politics primarily in terms of left versus right rather than traditional versus populist

In their assessment of both individual political parties and political issues, most Europeans still see politics in terms of “left” versus “right”. In many cases, differences of opinion on the populist-v-establishment axis are smaller than differences on the left-v-right axis. This is particularly visible with regard to immigration; in almost all countries, non-populist rightwingers are more likely to describe immigrants as an economic burden than populist leftwingers.

These differences also play out in attitudes toward individual political parties. Most rightwingers like all rightwing parties, but most populists do not like all populist parties. For example, a rightwing populist will be more favorable towards a traditional rightwing party than a leftwing populist one.

These findings show that it is high time that politicians and pundits put populism in its right place. Yes, traditional parties are losing support, but populist parties have hardly replaced them. Most Europeans are looking for non-populist political parties, be they new or traditional, to recapture and broaden the political spectrum so that it includes the full range of ideological differences on political issues. Populist parties are merely the voice of a loud minority, it turns out – not a silent majority.